Hansel and Gretel by Grimm-Bedtime Stories for Kids

"Hansel and Gretel" which is also known as “Little Step Brother” and “Little Step Sister”, is a German fairy tale collected by the German Brothers Grimm and published in 1812 in Grimm's Fairy Tales.

“Hansel and Gretel” has been adapted to various forms of entertainment, most notably the opera “Hänsel und Gretel (1893) by Engelbert Humperdinck”.

Hansel and Gretel are the names of a son and a daughter of a poor woodcutter. They live with their father and stepmother in a village near a forest. When a famine spreads over their land, they are abandoned in the forest by their father under the urge’s of the stepmother. Because she does not want to be starved to death. At first, their father rejects the wife’s idea but she claims that the two children may be taken by strangers who can feed them. Because the food is running out of stock, the father is forced to abandon his children. However, their plan is discovered by Hansel and Gretel. The children use a trail of white pebbles to come back home after they are left in the forest. However, they fail to do it for the second time when they cannot get the pebbles. Hansel and Gretel have to use slices of bread to make the trail but bread slices are eaten all by the animals.

Hansel and Gretel get lost in the forest, and fall into the hands of a witch who lives in a house made of gingerbread, cookies, cakes, and candy, with window panes of clear sugar. They are caught by the witch when they are eating her house due to hunger and tiredness. The old witch lures the children to come inside the house promising to provide them with a soft bed and good food.

Hansel and Gretel enter the house without realizing that the witch is bloodthirsty and intending to eat them. However, Hansel and Gretel trick the witch intelligently. They not only cheat the witch to avoid being eaten but also kill the witch. They survive and come back to their family with a vase full of treasure which they take from the witch’s house.

The stepmother has died from an unknown cause. Their father has been spending all his days lamenting the loss of his children, and is happy to see them come back safe and sound. With the witch's wealth, they all live happily ever after.

The moral of this fairy tale is : Children do not trust or speak to strangers, no matter how kind they may appear to be.